SW precog Vs Tachyons

[cmdrjones]

in the threads below I have been asking questions about a certain Fic about a SW Vs B5 crossover, and I have another physics related dilemma...

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=163071
https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic ... 4&t=161287
https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic ... 4&t=161592


Ok, I have sketched out a POD where the Death squadron arrives in B5 space just before season 1 from sometime during ESB.
The cause of this POD is the Epsilon III machine using its wierd tachyon beam device to create a 'temporal anomaly' (treknobabble tm) etc etc... after reviewing this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

I have a couple questions for the phyicist types out there:
#1 could Luke, Yoda or Vader's precog recognize the incoming wave of Tachyons "before" it strikes the SW galaxy? If so, I assume they could receive visions of the NTL thus setting up a whole bunch of possible paradoxes?
Also given the Reinterpretation principle, then conceivably we have:

Great Machine sends Tachyon signal back in time in 2257.
SW universe Force users perceive incoming wave of tachyons as it moves backwards through time. They perceive the new timeline "before" it takes place and modify their actions accordingly.
"Anti-tachyon" wave is generated and SW elements arrive in B5 timeline BEFORE 2257, already aware of the situation in B5 space!
does this seem plausible? It seems almost impossible to write, but I like a good challenge!
If so, this means I would have to outline a scenario where the SW forces arrive in B5 verse, continue through a chain of events to a logical conclusion, THEN due to jedi or sith precog, arrive EARLIER that the sending wave with any force users already aware of the previous chain of events! This is rather like many time travel shows where you have a series of events, then a 'rewind' where everything starts over with certain persons aware of partially aware of what happened. (The USS Bozemann comes to mind)

[Borgholio]

I'm not aware of any Force user being able to sense tachyons or any other particle for that matter.

[cmdrjones]

I'm not aware of any Force user being able to sense tachyons or any other particle for that matter.

It's not so much the particle, but the fact that it results in time travel, they would be sensing, (I think) the changes that come about due to Tachyon based 'communication' from a future era to a past era. I don't think we know HOW SW precog works, they could be sensing tachyons for all we know.

[Borgholio]

Tachyons don't time travel as far as I know. They can go FTL but not back in time. The great machine used them to open a portal to the past, but the tachyons themselves remained in the present.

[cmdrjones]

Tachyons don't time travel as far as I know. They can go FTL but not back in time. The great machine used them to open a portal to the past, but the tachyons themselves remained in the present.

Aha, ok. The Wiki page is the extent of my knowledge on the subject, but to seemed to imply that they have some rather strange properties when traveling backwards IN time. I also assume that in this section:

"The reinterpretation principle[1][2][18] asserts that a tachyon sent back in time can always be reinterpreted as a tachyon traveling forward in time, because observers cannot distinguish between the emission and absorption of tachyons. The attempt to detect a tachyon from the future (and violate causality) would actually create the same tachyon and send it forward in time (which is causal)."

when they talk about 'the attempt to detect a tachyon from the future' they are referring to a physical attempt using an instrument of some sort, not a mystic energy field.

[Borgholio]

Well yeah sending a tachyon back in time would definitely be strange, I have no idea how that would work since tachyons aren't even proven to exist yet anyways.

[Q99]

Trek does have actual anti-time particles I believe... All Good Things and all that.

And I have *no idea* how they'd interact with precog!

[Borgholio]

Trek does have actual anti-time particles I believe... All Good Things and all that.

From STFC they are called Chronometric particles.

[cmdrjones]

Trek does have actual anti-time particles I believe... All Good Things and all that.

From STFC they are called Chronometric particles.

Maybe THAT will send them back in time....

[Simon_Jester]

The cause of this POD is the Epsilon III machine using its wierd tachyon beam device to create a 'temporal anomaly' (treknobabble tm) etc etc... after reviewing this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

I have a couple questions for the phyicist types out there:
#1 could Luke, Yoda or Vader's precog recognize the incoming wave of Tachyons "before" it strikes the SW galaxy? If so, I assume they could receive visions of the NTL thus setting up a whole bunch of possible paradoxes?

I don't know what an NTL is.

I see no reason to assume that Force users can't precognitively find out about a bunch of tachyons before they arrive. Force users routinely 'foresee' events taking place thousands of light years away, or involving superluminal starships that can cross a galaxy in hours or days.

Also, Force-based precognition does not appear to lead to paradoxes- time travel and causality in Star Wars don't work that way. Either having information about a possible future does allow you to avert it, without paradox, or the information doesn't and you end up fulfilling your own prophecy. Either way, no paradoxes. It just doesn't happen in Star Wars. We've had people come in here with exhaustive lists of (old EU) instances of time travel, and I couldn't find a single example of a paradox or a rewritten timeline. Everything was either:

1) A one-directional transfer of information or objects from past to future, or of people being able to observe events in the past through various forms of clairvoyance. Stuff in the past affecting stuff in the future, but not being affected by it, doesn't cause any causality problems. That's how causality normally works all the time.

2) Beings from the present being kidnapped and trapped in the past, and occasionally being returned to (their) present. Since the victims of this process are either killed in the distant past without leaving any trace on the outside universe, or are returned unharmed to their own present, this does not create a causality problem. Events are consistent with Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle.

3) Droids from the present being sent an unknown distance into the future in a way that could potentially have altered the outcome of the Battle of Endor... except that no such alteration took place in the movie. It is clear that the droids in question had never been seen by the Ewoks prior to Endor, so if they arrived before Endor and "changed its past," they were forgotten. And it is clear that the droids had no prior knowledge of the events of Endor, so if they arrived after Endor and "brought back information from the future," that information was useless and/or forgotten.

In either case, no causality issue arises. Events are consistent with Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle.

4) A closed timelike curve in which Mace Windu travels back in time 4000 years, fights and wins a battle, returns to the present, and finds that history records (and by all evidence always has recorded) that he participated and won the battle. There is no evidence that Windu's actions "changed" the past, as opposed to this simply having been an unusual case of Samuel L. Jackson being so badass he could win a battle fought 3900 years before he was born.

Also given the Reinterpretation principle, then conceivably we have:

Great Machine sends Tachyon signal back in time in 2257.
SW universe Force users perceive incoming wave of tachyons as it moves backwards through time. They perceive the new timeline "before" it takes place and modify their actions accordingly.
"Anti-tachyon" wave is generated and SW elements arrive in B5 timeline BEFORE 2257, already aware of the situation in B5 space!
does this seem plausible? It seems almost impossible to write, but I like a good challenge!

It sounds relatively easy to write, but it implies that Star Wars technology permits easy time travel, because otherwise the Force users would have no way to construct a machine capable of sending them to the relevant point in the Babylon 5 timeline.

Since we have no evidence of normal or routine use of time travel in Star Wars, especially with the old EU out of the picture but even with it... I don't know if I like this idea.

If so, this means I would have to outline a scenario where the SW forces arrive in B5 verse, continue through a chain of events to a logical conclusion, THEN due to jedi or sith precog, arrive EARLIER that the sending wave with any force users already aware of the previous chain of events! This is rather like many time travel shows where you have a series of events, then a 'rewind' where everything starts over with certain persons aware of partially aware of what happened. (The USS Bozemann comes to mind)

That would in fact be an entertaining premise, and you might choose to roll forward with it even if I think it's implausible. I'm something of a fuddy-duddy.

[Elheru Aran]

Just a quick note: NTL is "New Time Line", so the one that is produced by the alteration in events.

[cmdrjones]

The cause of this POD is the Epsilon III machine using its wierd tachyon beam device to create a 'temporal anomaly' (treknobabble tm) etc etc... after reviewing this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

I have a couple questions for the phyicist types out there:
#1 could Luke, Yoda or Vader's precog recognize the incoming wave of Tachyons "before" it strikes the SW galaxy? If so, I assume they could receive visions of the NTL thus setting up a whole bunch of possible paradoxes?

I don't know what an NTL is.

I see no reason to assume that Force users can't precognitively find out about a bunch of tachyons before they arrive. Force users routinely 'foresee' events taking place thousands of light years away, or involving superluminal starships that can cross a galaxy in hours or days.

Also, Force-based precognition does not appear to lead to paradoxes- time travel and causality in Star Wars don't work that way. Either having information about a possible future does allow you to avert it, without paradox, or the information doesn't and you end up fulfilling your own prophecy. Either way, no paradoxes. It just doesn't happen in Star Wars. We've had people come in here with exhaustive lists of (old EU) instances of time travel, and I couldn't find a single example of a paradox or a rewritten timeline. Everything was either:

1) A one-directional transfer of information or objects from past to future, or of people being able to observe events in the past through various forms of clairvoyance. Stuff in the past affecting stuff in the future, but not being affected by it, doesn't cause any causality problems. That's how causality normally works all the time.

2) Beings from the present being kidnapped and trapped in the past, and occasionally being returned to (their) present. Since the victims of this process are either killed in the distant past without leaving any trace on the outside universe, or are returned unharmed to their own present, this does not create a causality problem. Events are consistent with Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle.

3) Droids from the present being sent an unknown distance into the future in a way that could potentially have altered the outcome of the Battle of Endor... except that no such alteration took place in the movie. It is clear that the droids in question had never been seen by the Ewoks prior to Endor, so if they arrived before Endor and "changed its past," they were forgotten. And it is clear that the droids had no prior knowledge of the events of Endor, so if they arrived after Endor and "brought back information from the future," that information was useless and/or forgotten.

In either case, no causality issue arises. Events are consistent with Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle.

4) A closed timelike curve in which Mace Windu travels back in time 4000 years, fights and wins a battle, returns to the present, and finds that history records (and by all evidence always has recorded) that he participated and won the battle. There is no evidence that Windu's actions "changed" the past, as opposed to this simply having been an unusual case of Samuel L. Jackson being so badass he could win a battle fought 3900 years before he was born.

Also given the Reinterpretation principle, then conceivably we have:

Great Machine sends Tachyon signal back in time in 2257.
SW universe Force users perceive incoming wave of tachyons as it moves backwards through time. They perceive the new timeline "before" it takes place and modify their actions accordingly.
"Anti-tachyon" wave is generated and SW elements arrive in B5 timeline BEFORE 2257, already aware of the situation in B5 space!
does this seem plausible? It seems almost impossible to write, but I like a good challenge!

It sounds relatively easy to write, but it implies that Star Wars technology permits easy time travel, because otherwise the Force users would have no way to construct a machine capable of sending them to the relevant point in the Babylon 5 timeline.

Since we have no evidence of normal or routine use of time travel in Star Wars, especially with the old EU out of the picture but even with it... I don't know if I like this idea.

If so, this means I would have to outline a scenario where the SW forces arrive in B5 verse, continue through a chain of events to a logical conclusion, THEN due to jedi or sith precog, arrive EARLIER that the sending wave with any force users already aware of the previous chain of events! This is rather like many time travel shows where you have a series of events, then a 'rewind' where everything starts over with certain persons aware of partially aware of what happened. (The USS Bozemann comes to mind)

That would in fact be an entertaining premise, and you might choose to roll forward with it even if I think it's implausible. I'm something of a fuddy-duddy.

I don't think I described that correctly. Of course, i know nothing about theoretical physics, hence my reference to Treknobabble. But, assuming I AM going to cross B5 and SW, I have to deal with both the differing technology AND the differing narratives. Apparently SW doesn't do time travel per se.... but precog is hinted at and is woven into the narrative. I suppose you could say it IS a form of time travel for information going from the future to the past and so on.
That being said, the Great Machine in B5 has demonstrated Time travel capabilities, and for the B5 timeline to make sense, the circle HAS to close, (I.e. the whole 'valen' thing) unless you want to rewrite the ENTIRE series where valen doesn't exist... no thanks.
So, I have to deal with it in some way. I was just musing that Luke and yoda's precog sessions in ESB would quite possibly affect the POD during ESB, especially if they were now privy to events in the B5 galaxy "before" one or the other of them (or both, or neither) are taken for a little ride into a new frontier so to speak..,, though it doesn't seem we can ever agree on whether tachyons EXIST much less how they behave. I assume, again, that the Trek particles are simply one interpretation of how they MIGHT function, once physics in the future defines and harnesses them to accomplish time travel.

[cmdrjones]

"Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_se ... _principle

Aha, good read. I'm still digesting it, but I think it basically states that time is self correcting and that paradoxes become impossible because they break the way physics/reality WORK and thus become impossible.... which seems kinda circular no?

My problem with Polchinski's paradox is, What would CAUSE the billiard ball to refrain from delivering the paradox producing blow and instead deliver the consistent glancing blow? The laws of physics? God? The will of the Force? I can see how paradoxes would be seen as 'bad' by nature, physics, God, common sense, etc, but by what mechanism would they be 'automatically' prevented? Are they (physicists) simply claiming that they are impossible because they make us upset/confused/angry? or perhaps because we can't model them mathmatically? because they have no solution?

[Batman]

The very fact that the problem that made you want to travel back in time (Hitler, the fact that you couldn't be bothered to study for your history test, the existence of Modern Talking, whatever) is there for you to want to correct in the first place means you failed to prevent it. However it works, time travel to change your past is an obvious no go.

[Simon_Jester]

"Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_se ... _principle

Aha, good read. I'm still digesting it, but I think it basically states that time is self correcting and that paradoxes become impossible because they break the way physics/reality WORK and thus become impossible.... which seems kinda circular no?

Well.

The argument, fundamentally, is that logic is logic and cause-and-effect sequences are not negotiable. You can 'step back' and view causality as a time-independent thing, with future causes resulting in past effects via time travel or precognition, sure. But you can't just remove cause and effect. You can't have uncaused effects, or causes that somehow produce effects that contradict the basic physical laws that govern the outcomes of that cause.

So everything that happens is the result of a logical and internally consistent series of causes. If you talk about a logically impossible event like "what if a man kills his own grandfather," the response is "well obviously, that didn't happen, because that would be impossible."

It's like talking about "well, what if this circle were square?" It doesn't matter that this is somehow a paradox, the fact that it's a paradox just means it can't actually happen in real life.

So the argument (first published by Niven as part of a bundle of time travel ideas a decade or more before Novikov stuck his oar in) is that any causal sequence of events resulting from time travel must be internally consistent. The sequence can loop back on itself or have events that cause themselves in a stable time loop or closed timelike curve. But it can't contain "A and not-A" at the same time because that violates basic principles of logic.

My problem with Polchinski's paradox is, What would CAUSE the billiard ball to refrain from delivering the paradox producing blow and instead deliver the consistent glancing blow? The laws of physics? God? The will of the Force? I can see how paradoxes would be seen as 'bad' by nature, physics, God, common sense, etc, but by what mechanism would they be 'automatically' prevented? Are they (physicists) simply claiming that they are impossible because they make us upset/confused/angry? or perhaps because we can't model them mathmatically? because they have no solution?

The mechanism that prevents the ball from retroactively deflecting itself is the same as the 'mechanism' that prevents circles from being square.

There is no mechanism. God does not (necessarily) intervene or do anything to make it happen. The laws of mathematics don't get mad at you. But nevertheless, if you try to draw a square circle, you will fail. You'll either fail to draw a square, or fail to draw a circle, or both. Those two configurations cannot coexist in the same object.

Likewise, the "ball goes into wormhole" and "ball doesn't go into wormhole" events cannot coexist in the same causal sequence. If you try to set up a sequence containing both, it will fail. Why? It depends, just like the exact way in which you will fail to draw the square circle depends on exactly what you did in your attempt to draw it in the first place. Maybe your pencil slips, maybe you draw a shape that matches one description but not the other, maybe you realize this is a stupid idea and don't do it. No telling.

[cmdrjones]

"Niven's Law of Conservation of History, otherwise known as Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_se ... _principle

Aha, good read. I'm still digesting it, but I think it basically states that time is self correcting and that paradoxes become impossible because they break the way physics/reality WORK and thus become impossible.... which seems kinda circular no?

Well.

The argument, fundamentally, is that logic is logic and cause-and-effect sequences are not negotiable. You can 'step back' and view causality as a time-independent thing, with future causes resulting in past effects via time travel or precognition, sure. But you can't just remove cause and effect. You can't have uncaused effects, or causes that somehow produce effects that contradict the basic physical laws that govern the outcomes of that cause.

So everything that happens is the result of a logical and internally consistent series of causes. If you talk about a logically impossible event like "what if a man kills his own grandfather," the response is "well obviously, that didn't happen, because that would be impossible."

It's like talking about "well, what if this circle were square?" It doesn't matter that this is somehow a paradox, the fact that it's a paradox just means it can't actually happen in real life.

So the argument (first published by Niven as part of a bundle of time travel ideas a decade or more before Novikov stuck his oar in) is that any causal sequence of events resulting from time travel must be internally consistent. The sequence can loop back on itself or have events that cause themselves in a stable time loop or closed timelike curve. But it can't contain "A and not-A" at the same time because that violates basic principles of logic.

My problem with Polchinski's paradox is, What would CAUSE the billiard ball to refrain from delivering the paradox producing blow and instead deliver the consistent glancing blow? The laws of physics? God? The will of the Force? I can see how paradoxes would be seen as 'bad' by nature, physics, God, common sense, etc, but by what mechanism would they be 'automatically' prevented? Are they (physicists) simply claiming that they are impossible because they make us upset/confused/angry? or perhaps because we can't model them mathmatically? because they have no solution?

The mechanism that prevents the ball from retroactively deflecting itself is the same as the 'mechanism' that prevents circles from being square.

There is no mechanism. God does not (necessarily) intervene or do anything to make it happen. The laws of mathematics don't get mad at you. But nevertheless, if you try to draw a square circle, you will fail. You'll either fail to draw a square, or fail to draw a circle, or both. Those two configurations cannot coexist in the same object.

Likewise, the "ball goes into wormhole" and "ball doesn't go into wormhole" events cannot coexist in the same causal sequence. If you try to set up a sequence containing both, it will fail. Why? It depends, just like the exact way in which you will fail to draw the square circle depends on exactly what you did in your attempt to draw it in the first place. Maybe your pencil slips, maybe you draw a shape that matches one description but not the other, maybe you realize this is a stupid idea and don't do it. No telling.

Thank you for this. I was honestly wondering if I would have to come up with an "in universe" explanation for the lack of paradoxes... To much Trek i suppose.